Despite the horrific nature of this book, I enjoy delving into the history of women in the Vanishing Triangle in the 1990s. McGowan makes you feel utterly horrified at what occurred in Ireland in the 1990s, a period when I was growing up and knew nothing of these disappearances. Even as a woman in my early 20s in the mid 2000s visiting a friend in Arklow and going out I felt totally safe and perhaps this helps explain how these murders or disappearances occurred. McGowan explains factually the nature of these disappearances and the events in Ireland at the time that might have led these to be swept under the carpet or ignored. The loose border too helps explain so much. Reading this book I felt I wanted to know more, and yet at the same time I was shocked by how people just vanished.

This is a true story of Ireland in the 1990's. Not the usual story of the troubles and violence but of eight women disappearing.
They were never seen again or heard of and their bodies were never found. More shockingly is that no one was ever tried or convicted of any crime leaving no conclusions for their families.
was this the work of one killer or was it something or someone more sinister.
Claire McGowan reveals the corrupt system than and one that is still failing women today.

Equal parts fascinating and heartbreaking, McGowan takes the reader through some notable disappearances that took place in what has been dubbed The Vanishing Triangle. Whilst this book does provide some theories for the what became of these women and who was responsible, it is not the intention of this book to give an be answer to these questions. What this book does is explore the factors that have contributed towards these disappearances remaining unsolved as well as possibly expand the list of women included as part of the Vanishing Triangle.

This is a book that is written with a lot of compassion and understanding as well as being very aware of the messaging that those perceived as girls by society receive from a very young age. I appreciated this awareness and also the time that McGowan takes to essentially rip these messages apart by highlighting the different circumstances surrounding each disappearance.

This was an interesting, although difficult, read about women who have disappeared in Ireland over the last few decades. While a few cases have been solved (one twenty years after the crime was committed!), most haven't and to this day their families have no idea what happened to them.

The author gives the scant details that are available, piecing together the women's last-known activities, and gives her personal thoughts on what might have happened. She also talks about the political and social situation in Ireland at the time, which had a big influence on these crimes.

Fascinating, sad, heartbreaking at times, it shows another side of Ireland that people rarely speak about, and the misogynistic attitudes that allowed these crimes to be committed. Recommend.

This was a difficult book to read because so many of the rapes and deaths have gone unresolved. It is an important book to shed light on the culture, circumstance, and biases that created the environment for these women to just vanish without a trace. Recommended reading

Thanks to NetGalley and Amazon publishing for an advanced reader copy.

I was definitely engaged in this investigation and inquiry in this true crime book by Claire McGowan. I love her books and knew she would present the facts and speculations in an interesting way. My first thoughts are how compelling and disturbing that these people are missing in Ireland and no clues can be found. I know there are some reviews that are negative towards this author, but it is more an awareness for people like me that had no idea this had happened.

I shuddered over the lack of analysis of 8 young women vanishing without a trace during this time period between 1993-1998. They could not connect these atrocious crimes to a serial killer. This was before DNA could be used as an extraction of evidence, even though there were similarities and differences as well as influences during this time period that hindered or played a huge role. Sad to say that the prejudice against women was mind-blowing with victim shaming and secrecy beyond my imagination.

The research into that time period was astounding and forthcoming that I was unaware of leaving me impressed with her studies not to mention she was a child at this time sheltered or unaware of the fear released in their area. The children were more worried and scared of the "troubles" The Northern Ireland conflict in 1968-1998 between the Protestant loyalist who wanted the province to remain part of the United Kingdom, and the Roman Catholic republicans wanted Northern Ireland to become part of the republic of Ireland. I'm not even going to attempt to understand all of their history, but I felt she did a good job at explaining it. In this movement, there was social upheaval, political unrest against homosexuals, contraception, abortion, divorce and the Catholic Church sex scandals. Less emphasis was placed on the missing people and more on the intrusions and bombings.

Claire analysed the similarities and differences between the crimes and counteracted the social changes with the influence of religion and politics. Clever speculations that left some readers upset, I thought was brilliant. I'm glad she brought this to my attention and even though it was compelling as well as disturbing it had me going down a rabbit hole. The only disappointment is I will probably never travel to this beautiful country.

Thank you NetGalley and Amazon Publishing for this title in exchange for my honest review.

The Vanishing Triangle by Claire McGowan is an informative true crime narrative of years of unsolved murders, kidnappings, and disappearances. Through much research many of the crimes are revealed while others remain. The crime history is challenging to pursue.

I like the author and was interested to read this book. I thought she painted a vivid picture of the time, life in Ireland and the difficulties women faced. The crimes were particularly bleak and sad, in their nature of ‘forgotten-ness’. For a true crime read, I felt there was something missing- a lack of structure and an emotional connection through the storytelling. It was interesting but I wasn’t completely gripped.

An interesting and thought-provoking book, which makes me realise (again) that the "good old days" were usually anything but. I know very little about Ireland (north and south) so it was fascinating to see how these crimes were often facilitated by the situation at the time. Hopefully things are very different now.

My thanks to Claire and Netgalley for allowing me to read the Vanishing Triangle prior to the publication date.

The title refers to an area in Ireland where 8 women went missing over a number of years. Some would never be heard of again, others would be found murdered.

Interviews of potential witnesses resulted in a deafening silence as they took the decision to emulate the 3 wise monkeys, See no evil, Hear no evil and Speak no evil.
Looking at the bigger picture, it is possible that the witnesses refused to speak because of the hatred for the RUC, but it could equally be because they feared for their own safety were they to be seen talking to the RUC. After all, this is a country which had a government but the paramilitary organisations often had more influence.

This is only a tiny part of the story. Claire touches on the numerous aspects of Irish society which influence women’s lives.

This was a time before integrated technology and social media allowed for information to be shared quickly. (It was only in the early 1990s that the Griew report resulted in a major overhaul of IT provision within the RUC which would support communications between the divisions.)

It is an interesting book but in my opinion, it does not provide a truly balanced view of the complex situation within the country.

It would also have been helpful to have a chart/map of the dates , locations and outcomes of the incidents for the readers who are not familiar with the country.

It's devastating that a story like this has to be told. In 1990s Ireland, women were disappearing at an alarming rate while residents weren't even aware it was happening. The title comes from a specific area where most of the disappearances occurred; that fact alone should have thrown up some red flags. The author grew up here and was close to the age of several of the woman that vanished so she has a first-hand account of society at that time. The news was dominated by the political turmoil and these disappearances weren't even on the radar. Sadly, that may well have been the case even if the Troubles weren't occurring, such was the attitude towards women in general.

Police often dismissed the concerns of relatives, believing the women to have left on their own accord, or if they suffered from any mental health issues, they must have taken their own lives. But as the author points out, they certainly didn't bury themselves, so their bodies would have been found, eventually. That's the obvious and disturbing fact - the bodies have never been found, even decades later. Clearly, these women met a terrible fate and the perpetrators were never brought to justice.

There was also the tendency for the officials to blame the victims, condemning them for how they dressed, how they acted, for traveling alone and accepting rides from strangers. How dare these women go about their daily lives when danger lurks behind every corner! How dare they be sexual beings who don't look forward to a life of pregnancies and obedience to their (often abusive) husbands. It sounds facetious, but this was the norm, this is how young women were raised. The truly disturbing aspect is that it's barely any better now, decades later.

It's also upsetting that in some cases there was a clear suspect but due to technicalities they were never charged, were charged decades after the crime, or only served a fraction of their sentence. That can be almost as hard as not knowing, when the families of these victims come across these suspects going about their daily lives, due to the small size of the towns they live in. Having to cross paths with someone they can almost guarantee hurt their loved ones is a terrible burden to bear. I'm surprised no one inflicted their own justice upon these men. Sure, that would be lowering themselves to the standards of criminals, but in a society where victims like these women were ignored and forgotten, would it even matter?

Claire McGowan’s crime fiction is always enjoyable but, as she says in this detailed exploration of real missing women, fiction always allows the reader a satisfying or at least a logical conclusion. In ‘The Vanishing Triangle’ this is not the case.
McGowan grew up in rural Northern Ireland during the 90s when many of the women she has researched disappeared. A few bodies have been found but, for the most part, the whereabouts of these women remains a mystery. For a long time, nobody much seemed to care. Few disappearances were even newsworthy at the time. Why?
In this exposition of bungled investigations, engrained prejudice, sectarian violence and the pronouncements of a corrupt, judgemental Church, McGowan looks unflinchingly at her homeland and presents the reader with some hard truths. However, whilst many readers may find themselves shocked at her reminders of Ireland’s draconian laws on abortion, divorce and homosexuality, at the centre of this book is a truth to which, sadly, we can all relate: society assumes that women must be entirely responsible for their own safety, that if they are assaulted it is somehow their fault.
Whilst the charm of the Irish charm and their beautiful countryside is what most of us imagine now that the Troubles are receding into the past, McGowan shows us that beneath these clichés is commonly accepted domestic violence, prurient judgements and isolated communities in which it appears to be easy to capture and kill. This is not an easy read and nor should it be.
My thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK, Little A for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

Not my typical read. I really snatched up this book because I liked the authors previous book. I don't know if it's because I don't like "true crime" stories but I found this book to not be what I expected. While I am saddened by the accounts that happened, in 2022, none of this surprises me, not even knowing it happened in the 90's, Evil has always been there, I know this.

Eeeeeesh this was a big nope for me. I’m a fan of the fictional work. This? Not a good road to go down. I was intrigued with finding out about these women and her true crime outlook and then I quickly realized this was a book about jumping to conclusions and like watching some sort of jumbled warped biased unsolved mysteries show. Then add the writing - it was like I was reading case files myself. On repeat.

Unfortunately this wasn’t for me.

Thank you to Amazon Publishing and netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

The author relates what happened in Ireland, specifically in Dublin in the 1990s. I like that she relates her life during that time. The book centers in an area, a triangle in Dublin where several women had dissappeared and almost nothing had been found about. The text narrate the rol of different institutions in Ireland and how they reacted to those facts.

True crime podcasts and youtube videos are some of my favorite to listen and watch to pass the time.

I remember reading this authors previous work and really enjoying it. Seeing that she was moving into non-fiction and true crime I was really interested to read this one.

Where this missed for me was the way it was written. I would have liked to know more about these cases but they way it was written it didn't really help. It was very name, case, cause of death, and then repeat with no real conversation between that. I appreciated the bits of Irelands history and the background of the time period when these murders occured. This one might have been better as a podcast versus a book.

Thanks to Amazon Publishing for sending this my way for my honest review.

This book was a real eye opener! Thanks to Claire for having the confidence and knowledge to research this subject! It amazed me how little was done in the search for these ladies ( but life in the 90s in a quiet place) it seemed the norm, as in so many other parts of the country/ world.. I found the book enjoyable and thought provoking.

Claire McGowan is known for her crime fiction, but "The Vanishing Triangle" is a work of nonfiction that amply demonstrates how different fiction is from real life when it comes to solving crimes. As Ms. McGowan notes several times in the book, if she was writing a novel that involved the crimes detailed in the book, the scrappy detective would pursue all possible leads and overcome all odds to find the killer, who despite thinking he was really clever, would make mistakes or be undone by his own hubris. However, fiction is not real life, and solving the mystery of the disappearances and murders of some of the young women discussed in The Vanishing Triangle has proven elusive. The author focuses on a series of disappearances of young women in an area around Dublin, Ireland between 1993 and 1998, but she expands the story to discuss earlier and later disappearances and murders in that area and elsewhere in Ireland and Northern Ireland. In some cases, the missing woman's body was found and the killer caught and convicted (although the prison sentence was often not long). In other cases, the murderer is known or likely known but the necessary evidence to prove guilt is lacking, including sometimes the body of the missing woman. The author discusses the various factors that contributed to these cases not being solved, or taking so long to solve, including a culture of silence and shame, and how mistakes, failed connections, incompetence, or even corruption allowed murderers to remain free for many years, increasing their victim count. It is an interesting, and at times disturbing, book.

I received a copy of the e-book via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

This is not fiction this is a true crime story. In Ireland between 1993 and 1998 eight woman disappeared suddenly just snatched off the streets ,some were found murdered but some were never found causing such distress to their Families .This book tries to investigate and it seems that there were many more woman who suffered the same fate but the Police never seemed to be able to convict anyone so most of the cases remain unsolved .Very sad that this can happen but I think I would have preferred to have read a fictionalised version with a proper ending .Thank you NetGalley for my ARC

McGowan has written a fascinating examination of the murders of multiple women in Ireland in the 1990s. They were more than women who lived on the margins but their disappearances and deaths didn't receive the attention that the murder of other women did. This looks not only at the investigation process but also societal perceptions. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. Hopefully this will find an audience beyond the true crime genre.